


Probably You

by oschun



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:09:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oschun/pseuds/oschun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen knows he's a trite stereotype: a small-town boy from Texas who ran away to the big city to reinvent himself as an actor. He also understands the truth of the old adage that you can’t outrun your past. But going home and letting go of old fears is difficult and complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Written for [](http://bigbang-mixup.livejournal.com/profile)[**bigbang_mixup**](http://bigbang-mixup.livejournal.com/). Inspired by the gorgeous mix by the equally gorgeous [](http://mementis.livejournal.com/profile)[**mementis**](http://mementis.livejournal.com/). Thanks to the ever charming [](http://chemm80.livejournal.com/profile)[**chemm80**](http://chemm80.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

[Probably You Mix](http://8tracks.com/mementis/probably-you) by  [ ](http://mementis.livejournal.com/profile) [ **mementis** ](http://mementis.livejournal.com/)

[Art](http://myfriendfredric.livejournal.com/13395.html) by  [ ](http://myfriendfredric.livejournal.com/profile) [ **myfriendfredric** ](http://myfriendfredric.livejournal.com/)

Jensen grinds a cigarette butt under the heel of his boot, closes his eyes against the warmth of a sudden breeze against his face and breathes in the dry air. The setting sun reddens the hills and reflects light off the white clouds on the horizon so the sky is filled with a disorientating brightness. For a suspended moment it could almost be the beginning of the day, not the end, except for those deepening shadows in the folds of the hills that signal the coming darkness. The air is still heavy with heat.

Sunset in West Texas.

He takes a final long look at the landscape—a snapshot—before getting back into his rental car. Not that he needs another reminder. He carries that picture of _Home_ in his head with him, has done for the year he has been away, exiled from everything familiar and well-loved and painful.  

A long-hauler speeds past the rest stop. The rental shudders in response. Jensen sighs, turns the key in the ignition and switches on the headlights as the last of the sunset light wanes. Time to go home.

A troop of dogs greets him as he pulls up in front of the low, sprawling house surrounded by oak trees. The house is too big for his dad on his own now, but he’ll never leave. His roots here are too deep. Some people never get that longing to see what’s over the horizon.

A mangy old border collie called Rufus jumps up against him, excitedly wagging his tail. It’s nice to be remembered. Jensen rubs his ears and speaks softly to him.

His dad appears in the doorway. “There you are,” he says. He’s a shadowy silhouette framed by light from the room behind him. The bulb for the porch light must have blown. It’s dark out here. The tall, stooped figure is familiar, the voice is too, but Jensen can’t make out details, can’t tell if his dad has been altered by time or the disease that has won the battle of occupation for his body.

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s Jensen.”

There’s a snort. “I know who you are, Jensen. Come inside. I made soup.”

Jensen might as well have left yesterday, not a year ago. A year in which he has tried to reinvent himself. No longer Jensen the small town boy, but Jensen the almost successful actor.

He follows his dad into the house, drops his bag at the bottom of the stairs and makes his way to the kitchen. It was always the center of the house. He pauses before sitting down in his usual seat at the table and waits for the bowl of steaming hot soup.

Cooking up a pot of soup was always his dad’s Friday night ritual. The rich fragrance would dominate the house, in the way that everything he ever did dominated the environment he was in. Jensen’s mom was the better, more regular cook, but if he had to choose a meal that reminded him most of being a kid, it would be this. 

His dad sits across from him. He has aged. His face is gaunt, eyes sunken into their sockets, bleary, tired, lacking the sharp intelligence and mocking humor Jensen remembers. “You look tired.” He tries for a careful, inoffensive tone.

“So do you. Why don’t you get on an airplane like a regular person, instead of driving halfway across the damn country?”

So he hasn’t lost his sharp tongue.

“You know I don’t like flying.”

No mocking rejoinder about it having nothing to do with liking and everything to do with irrational fear, but the smile and nod still imply criticism, a pointed reference to his absence. As if a fear of flying was a reason for staying away.

The soup is as good as he remembers. Jensen eats in silence, aware of his dad’s heavy gaze.

“I am tired. I’m sick and I’m old and I’m tired. We need to talk about my will and about what’s going to happen to the dogs and the house.”

Jensen pushes away the empty bowl and scrapes back his chair. “Not tonight, we don’t. Jesus, I just got here. This can wait until morning. Unless you’re planning on skipping out tonight.”

His dad’s lips tighten. “You always had a sharp tongue, Jensen.”

“Only with you,” he replies bitterly, regretting the tone instantly, angry with himself already for it going this way when he’d promised that it wouldn’t. He stands up. “I’m going outside.”

The sky is a low ceiling of dark velvet studded with stars, close enough to reach up and touch it. He shakes a cigarette out of the pack and lights up. He isn’t a heavy smoker, doesn’t have more than a couple a day and has been thinking of giving them up completely anyway, but the pack is already half empty and he only bought it this morning.

He sits down on the old rocker that used to be his mom’s favorite chair on the porch and absently rubs Rufus’ head, smiles at the way the dog rests his chin on his thigh, looking quizzically up at him from under twitching eyebrows.

His dad comes out, the wooden floorboards creaking under his weight—there’s something ridiculously familiar about that particular sound—and hands him a beer. Jensen takes it and drinks half of it in one long, thirsty swallow. It’s cold and bitter, makes his gut cramp briefly. He exhales and hears his dad do the same after he takes a swallow of his own beer. Rufus abandons his side for his dad’s.

They sit and listen to the other dogs barking at shadows in the yard, the sound of the cicadas, a long-hauler on the freeway in the dark distance.

They have another beer and talk a little. Neutral questions and answers about Jensen’s TV show and his recent role in a stage play, the work that needs doing on the roof of the house and his dad’s regular poker game.

They start on a third beer and his dad tells him a story about how Art Frederickson nearly shot Hank Johnson one night after they drank too much whiskey and there was a heated argument over cheating at cards and some long forgotten slight that dated back to high school. Art got his shotgun from his truck and threatened to kill Hank.

 Jensen smiles in the darkness when his dad describes the ensuing scuffle and how the next day they’d all gone fishing together to get over their hangovers.

“Old fools pretending to still have the fire of youth,” his dad scoffs.

As if he wasn’t exactly the same. One time—it must have been a few weeks before Jensen left—his dad and Art got into a brawl with some seasonal ranch workers in the parking lot of _Layla’s._ Jared was with him in the bar that night so they went out to break it up. Jared’s wrist got fractured when he ducked a punch, slipped, put his hand out to catch himself and landed badly on it.

He was still in plaster the day Jensen left. The cast had looked stark against his tan, made him look vulnerable when he’d held it with his other hand against his body. Everything about Jared that day had been defensive.      

“I’m going to bed.”

Jensen looks up at his dad standing next to him. “Okay. Good night.”

His dad opens his mouth as if he wants to say something else, closes it again and shrugs. “C’mon Rufus.” The dog gets up and follows him into house.

Jensen is exhausted. The long drive has taken it out of him and his back is stiff from sitting for so long. He stands and stretches. The chair rocks, steadies and stills. He carries the beer bottles back into the kitchen, turns out the lights, picks up his bag at the foot of the stairs and goes up to his room. Everything is as he left it: the three-quarter bed, his desk, the bookshelf holding his trophies and textbooks from when he was at school. The cactus in a ceramic pot on the windowsill is still alive.

He sits down on the edge of the bed and flexes his shoulders, rubs the back of his neck.

A ghostly hand runs down his spine, illusory, a sense memory, and a voice asks him if his shoulders hurt. It feels so real he turns around and imagines Jared lying against the pillows and looking back at him.

 Jared at twelve with a cheeky grin on his face and a comic book in hand, waiting for him to lie down so they can read together.

Jared at sixteen with a different expression, a different invitation.

Jensen shakes his head to dispel the image. He goes to the bathroom and washes his face, brushes his teeth, his eyes on the peeling paint up near the ceiling. The whole house looks old and neglected. It’s depressing and adds to his bone-weariness.                     

He collapses into bed and sleeps fitfully. The next morning he wakes up feeling groggy and disoriented, remembering fragments of a dream about being in a dark cave with an animal, a mountain lion or a bear, something breathing and menacing, between him and the entrance of the cave.

His dad is on the porch when he goes downstairs. They grunt at each other and together they watch the world wake up over the rims of coffee cups. It’s all very familiar.

“Do you want to get started on the roof?”

“I don’t have the supplies. If I’d known the cavalry was coming, I’d have been better prepared.”

Jensen grits his teeth, biting back a retort. “I’ll go into town and get what we need.”

“Don’t go anywhere near that mall on the edge of town. It’s full of cheap, breakable shit. Get it on the account at Frederickson’s.”

Jensen can’t work up the energy to do the conversation about poor modern workmanship.

“Take the pickup. And make sure you put everything on the account. I don’t want you paying for it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replies wryly as he catches the set of keys his dad throws at him.

The truck is ancient and temperamental, responsive to some secret sequence of actions only his dad knows. Conspiring to prove his incompetence, it won’t start at first, and when it finally does, the gears grind loudly and it lurches forward when he gently presses the gas pedal.

He can see his dad shaking his head mockingly in the rearview mirror.

“Piece of shit,” Jensen hisses.

The pickup farts out a black exhaust cloud in reply.

But he can’t hold onto his bad mood when he hits the road into town. It’s too beautiful a day. The wind through the open window clears his head and the sun’s heat on his arm resting on the windowsill fills him with simple happiness. It’s been a long time since he felt like this. 

Art’s wife is behind the counter at the store. She grills him about life in the city and what it’s like to be on the TV, wants to know when he’s going to get married and start a family, gives him some free advice about hard, city women who are only interested in their careers and getting their photograph in the magazines.

Jensen half listens and nods politely in the right places.

A group of teenage girls clusters together outside, watching through the store window, giggling and whispering behind their hands. When he comes out, they idly follow him to where he’s parked the pickup. It takes him a while because he has to stop and make small talk with a number of people on the street.

Despite his dad’s injunction, or because of it, he stops off at the mall and buys a case of beer and some food. The fridge had looked pretty empty. Anything he buys will be met with criticism so he purposefully chooses things from a deli that will really irritate his dad: olives, imported cheese, hummus, some jars chosen purely for their exoticism.

His dad surprises him when he stifles a smile as he unpacks the grocery bag and then shoves everything wordlessly into the back of the fridge.

They work on the roof in the afternoon, a country music station on the radio in the kitchen, the sun beating down on them as they fall easily into a familiar routine. They always worked well together. Anything that didn’t require the minefield of conversation and the necessity of pretending they understood each other.

The back and armpits of Jensen’s t-shirt are soaked by the time they finish for the day.  A beer tastes especially good afterwards.

He goes upstairs and takes a shower, empties the contents of his bag on the bed and considers what to wear.

He told himself he wasn’t going to do this, but here he is, and it isn’t as if he actually believed the promises he’d made. He’s going to _Layla’s_. Jared will be there. Jared won’t be surprised to see him because somebody will have told him that they saw Jensen in town today. He’ll be waiting for him.

Jensen takes a deep breath and tries to stifle the feeling of a fluttering bird trapped in his chest.

His dad looks him over when he goes back downstairs, clenches his jaw and turns back to the television without a word.

“I won’t be long.”

“You’re a grown man, Jensen. Do whatever you like,” his dad says to the television.

He repeats that in his head like a mantra the whole way to _Layla’s._ He is a grown man and he doesn’t need anybody’s permission. He’s an adult in control of his behavior and emotions. And he isn’t the same person who left a year ago.

It’s Saturday night so the parking lot of _Layla’s_ is packed but the rental is small enough for him to squeeze it into a small space between two battered, mud-streaked pickups.

Inside, it’s noisy and sweaty. A few people slap him on the back and call out to him. Jensen smiles, nods, exchanges a few barely heard words over the blaring rock music and continues making a beeline for the bar. He orders a beer and turns to scan the room, spots what he’s looking for and grips the bottle so tightly he almost snaps it off at the neck.

Jared is on the dance floor, talking and laughing with everyone around him. Always a showoff, always the centre of attention.

Everything about him is so familiar but changed in subtle ways. He’s heavy with muscle, features more planed, cheekbones framed by sideburns and longish hair, much longer than Jensen has ever seen him wear it before. He flicks it back and grins down at the girl he’s dancing with. Another girl behind him smacks him on the ass. He reaches for her and pulls her in, wraps his other arm around the first girl and the three of them sway together, laughing and teasing. He twirls one girl, then the other. Somebody whoops at them and Jared looks across, catches Jensen’s gaze and just stops, his face losing color and slackening into an expression which makes him look years older.

He didn’t know, Jensen realizes. The shock on Jared’s face gives him a moment of perverse satisfaction, even as the hurt look which follows it starts up the struggling of the trapped bird inside his ribcage again.

The girls turn to see what caused Jared’s reaction. One puts a supportive hand on his shoulder and stretches up to whisper in his ear. The other just looks bewildered. Jared shakes his head, plasters a grin on his face and pats the girl talking to him reassuringly on the back. He looks at Jensen again, bites his bottom lip and takes a deep breath, probably doesn’t realize how obvious it is that he’s steeling himself.

This is not quite how Jensen had imagined this, and he’s played it through many possible permutations in his imagination.

Jared’s expression hardens and he strides across the dance floor, glances at the short flight of steps up to the bar packed with bodies and then just vaults over the banister between the lower and upper level, a shortcut through the crowd to get him to Jensen quicker. He’s breathing hard when he steps up to him, maybe from the exertion of his gymnastic display, maybe from dancing. Maybe it’s something else.

“Jensen.” His tone changes halfway through Jensen’s name, starts on accusation, breaks midway and ends on something that might be hurt.

“Hi, Jared.”

What else is he supposed to say?

“What are you—? Oh, is it your dad? What happened?”

“No, it’s not that—I mean, he’s okay. I got called home for final instructions so I’m just here to sort everything out. I guess you heard he’s got cancer. It’s in his liver, in his spine, pretty much everywhere and he doesn’t have long.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

Jensen waits for the condolences, some expression of sympathy. Instead, Jared just looks angry, his jaw clenched tight, eyes hostile. He licks dry lips and glances down at Jensen’s beer on the bar, picks it up and drains it, eyes on Jensen as he does it and his throat working.

Jensen blinks in surprise at the antagonism of the gesture. “Help yourself.”           

“I will.” Jared wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and leans forward. “Is it even fucking possible?”

“What?”

“That you got even prettier.”

 Jensen’s face floods with heat. Jared’s expression softens. “You still do that?”

“What?”

“Blush like that.”

“No.”

Jared flashes a full smile this time. “Thought you would have gotten better at controlling it, you being an actor and everything, being watched and admired all the time.”

“I’m not admired all the time.” He wishes Jared would stop staring at him so closely. He’s starting to feel like a specimen under a microscope.

“Oh, yes, you are, Jensen.” Changing course, he says, “Buy me a beer.”

“I think _you_ owe _me_ a beer after drinking mine.”

“I don’t have my wallet with me.”

“I’ve heard that line before.”

Jared’s expression darkens. “Not from me.”

“No, that’s true. You never gave a shit about money, always spread it around when you had it. Are you still broke?”

“Yes. Are you still such a tight-ass?”

Jensen blushes again, grumbles under his breath as he turns to the bar and orders them a couple of beers and two shots of whiskey. He hears Jared huff a laugh.

They swallow the shots and then study each other, leisurely scanning for physical changes, cataloguing everything that is still so familiar. Their silent scrutiny must look strange to anybody watching.

“How are things between you and your dad?”

“You really asking, or are we still doing this thing?” Jensen gestures to suggest the tension and one-upmanship between them.

Jared’ s expression is serious. “I’m really asking.”

Jensen relaxes a little. This is familiar terrain for them. “Same as it always was, but it’s not like I thought we were going to play out some kind of deathbed reconciliation scene. ”

“No, real life sucks like that. But hey, at least you got to pretend in that terrible soap you were briefly in.”

Jensen grins, surprised. “I rocked that scene. There wasn’t a dry eye on set afterwards.”

“It was very moving,” Jared agrees. “The way you played it with just enough controlled anger underneath all the regret and compromise was very convincing. Method acting, right?”

Jensen snorts. “You a fan of the show?”

“Of course not. You know how much I hate soaps. It was on in the background somewhere. I wasn’t even really watching.”

Jared smiles but there are so many other emotions lurking behind his words that Jensen doesn’t return it. “I’m sorry to hear that things didn’t work out between you and… uh… her.” Jensen can’t bring himself to name the girl they went to high school with, the one Jared started seeing just before he left. It’s easier to hate some dehumanized concept of a person, a symbol, and it makes him feel like less of an asshole when he fantasizes about her being run over by a bus.

“I know. You said so.”

“I was drunk.”

Jared half smiles. His voice is low and quiet. “Yeah, Jensen, I know that.”

“I shouldn’t have called you when I was like that. I shouldn’t have said the things I said.”

Jared raises his eyebrows, the half smile turning derisive. “Which things? That you were missing me, that you still love me? Or that your life is easier without me in it? Which of those things should you not have said?”

Jared’s bluntness shouldn’t be such a surprise. Jensen drains his beer. He should have known coming here was a mistake. “I’m not doing this with you right now, Jared. Especially not here. I’m going. Maybe we can talk tomorrow.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, turns and fights his way through the crowd. So much for being a grown man.

The temperature has dropped outside and the air is almost cool against his heated face. It’s a relief to be out of the heat and noise of the bar.

“You are such a fucking coward!”

He should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy. He turns around and watches Jared coming towards him, balances his weight, just in case.

“You are always walking away.” Jared punctuates each word by sharply poking him in the chest.

 Jensen swats aside his hand and steps a couple of paces backwards. “I walked away once, Jared. That’s not exactly a pattern of behavior.”

Jared closes the distance between them again, his breath warm on Jensen’s face: the smell of beer and something sweeter underlying it. “Bullshit. In your head you were always leaving, so it’s the same thing, and you talked about it often enough.”

Jensen folds his arms across his chest.  “That wasn’t about you or about us. I just wanted to get out of here. Anyway, you were already seeing—”

“Not true,” Jared cuts in. “It was about us. It was about your dad finding out about us. It was about your mom’s disappointment. It was about your constant, screwed-up guilt, and the way you used to push me away all the time.” 

Irritation starts to bubble up inside Jensen. “You don’t understand what it was like for me because everything is so easy for you. You’re so…” He struggles for the right word. “You’re so fucking cheerful all the time. Your problem, Jared, is you’re not serious enough.”

Those are not the words he was looking for, they don’t even come close to approximating the oblivious, blissful way Jared just bounds his way through life, the way Jensen always felt like he had to carry everything that was difficult and complicated on his own.

Jared has his hand clenched around Jensen’s bicep. Jensen tries to shrug him off, grinds out, “And get your big paws off me.” Jared always used to do that: physically hold onto him when he thought he had some serious point to make.

Jared just tightens his fingers. His mouth hangs open. “Cheerful?” he eventually sputters. “You’re criticizing me for being too _cheerful_?”       

 “No, that’s not what I meant.” Jensen drops his voice to a low growl as he tries to prize Jared’s hand off his arm. “Let me go. I’m not asking you again, Jared.”

Jared goes still. He raises his eyebrows and smirks, his lip curling with humor and combat. “You’re not asking me again?” he whispers. “What exactly are you going to do then, Jensen?”

Jared’s fingers are tourniquet tight. The blood-flow has stopped to Jensen’s arm and his hand is starting to feel cold and numb. He clenches it into a fist.

Jared seems to take that as some sort of reply. He moves closer and lowers his head, meets Jensen’s gaze. “Go on. Do it.”

Jensen glances at Jared’s mouth, confused by his proximity, can’t at first work out what he means, gets lost in memories of kissing him. That first time when they were so young and it was such a new and perfect thing. The last time, when Jared had probably known it was the last time and Jensen hadn’t.   

Jared’s breath hitches and Jensen looks up, reads his intention, twists his face away and wrenches his arm out of Jared’s grasp. He steps backwards. “I’m not—I’m not doing that. I’m not going to hit you, Jared. I’m not doing this redneck bullshit of fighting in the parking lot of _Layla’s_ on a Saturday night.”

“That’s not what you were thinking about doing,” Jared says quietly.

All Jensen’s tiredness washes back. He doesn’t have the defenses to deal with this right now. “Oh, I was thinking about hitting you, Jared. I really was. But I’m too tired to do it tonight. Come round to the house tomorrow and I’ll kick your ass in the yard. The way I did when we were in the tenth grade after you lied to me about kissing that girl behind the gym.” He turns around, forgets for a second where he parked the rental car before recognizing it just ahead of him.

He unlocks the car and hears Jared say behind him, “I never kissed her. She kissed me. I was just too chicken shit to do anything but let her do it.”

Jensen faces him, leaning back against the car. “You still lied about it, but it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Jared steps closer, crowding Jensen closer against the car. “Doesn’t it?” His voice has dropped low, the tone intimate and suggestive.

Jensen feels overwhelmed by Jared’s physical presence. His brain is sending him all sorts of conflicting signals: push him away; pull him closer; move away; lean in closer.

Jared’s licks his lips and bites the lower one, a sign of uncertainty, as he reaches up and fits his hand into Jensen’s nape, starts gently rubbing the tense muscle, softly asks, “You still carry all this tension in your neck when you’re stressed?”

Jensen jerks back and stiffens, but doesn’t pull away like he should. Without even meaning to, he sighs and closes his eyes, leaning the weight of his head back into Jared’s palm, familiarity and old habits working against him. He’s aware of Jared moving closer, knows he should open his eyes, but he’s so tired. His breath catches when he feels Jared’s lips on his neck, warm and firm, looking for his pulse, finding it, the heat of his tongue sliding against Jensen’s skin.

Jensen opens his eyes. The sky is big and unknown above him. The pinprick stars and crescent moon look impossibly far away. “I wish you wouldn’t do this to me.” He’s only partly talking to Jared. In Jensen’s opinion, the entire fucking universe conspires against him whenever he’s around Jared. This was not supposed to happen.

Or maybe he’s just lying to himself and this is exactly what he knew would happen.

Jared makes a muffled sound near his ear. Goose-bumps spread their way down Jensen’s body, sensitizing his skin, his nipples pebble and chafe against his t-shirt. Jared bites the lobe of his ear, his breath ragged, his thigh slipping between Jensen’s. He kisses along Jensen’s jaw-line, wraps both hands around the back of his head and looks at him, eyes bright and skin flushed, before leaning in and kissing him.

It’s impossibly perfect, like the first time, and somehow really sad, like the last time. There’s an ache in Jensen’s chest that distracts him from the ache between his legs. He’s about to break the kiss when Jared groans and presses his tongue deeper into Jensen’s mouth,  pulls him forward so he can cup Jensen’s ass in both hands, half pulling him up onto his thigh.

It tips things over, unbalances the tension between wanting and resisting. Jensen just gives in and sinks into the heat and strength of Jared’s body. He can feel Jared’s hand fumbling with the button and zipper of his jeans, knows he should stop it, but he’s so distracted by Jared’s mouth and the hot slide of his tongue that he can’t even think straight.

Jared rests his forehead against Jensen’s and breathes heavily against his mouth. “Thought I was dreaming when I saw you earlier.” He manages to unzip Jensen’s jeans, hesitates before stroking him through his briefs. Jensen curses and grips Jared’s biceps harder, holding on.

“I was coming to see you,” Jared whispers, his hand still stroking, making it difficult for Jensen to concentrate on what he’s saying. “I just needed to finalize some things here first. After you called me—the things you said—”

Resigned now to the inevitability of this and desperate for it to happen already, Jensen says, “Just stop talking, Jared.”

He doesn’t allow Jared to respond, shuts him up by sealing their mouths tightly together, tries at the same time to get the back door of the car open, drops the keys on the ground, means to pick them up, logical voice reminding himself of where they fell as he manages to get the door open and pulls Jared into the back seat with him.

They struggle to fit, too tall and too clumsy with over eagerness, knees and elbows in the way. Jared collapses on top of him, his full weight pressing down on Jensen’s body. He bites into the side of Jensen’s neck and it really hurts. He rasps in Jensen’s ear, “You’re so stubborn. You think you know all the answers, but you don’t.”

Jensen groans, doesn’t dispute that, wordlessly acknowledging to himself that he never had any of the answers. He tugs Jared’s t-shirt up to his armpits, unsuccessfully tries to yank it over his head, has to push Jared away so he can try and free it completely. Laughing, Jared sits up and pulls it off, then throws it onto the front seat. That allows Jensen to get at the buckle of his leather belt. He unbuckles it and looks up to see Jared watching him with hooded eyes. For a brief moment he looks like a complete stranger.

Jensen licks his lips nervously. “You’re gonna have to lift up so we can get these off you.”

Jared gives him a heated look before lifting himself and straightening his legs. Between them they manage to get his jeans and boxers down to his ankles. He leans next to Jensen on one elbow, his bicep bulging, grins when Jensen raises an eyebrow at the size of it. Jensen bites into the muscle. Retribution.

“Fuck,” Jared gasps. He grips Jensen’s chin and pushes his head away so he can bite again into the same place on the side of Jensen’s neck, soothes the hurt with his tongue and shushes Jensen when he moans. He tugs the painful skin with his teeth, sucks and bites the same spot, doesn’t seem to realize how rough he’s being, his fingers tight on Jensen’s jaw. His cock is hot and hard against Jensen’s stomach.   

Jensen’s breath has shortened into little pants. “That—that hurts,” he manages to get out, hearing how hoarse and strange his own voice sounds. Jared isn’t really hurting him, not physically, or at least he doesn’t think so, but he’s feeling breathless and weird and doesn’t know what he’s saying.

Jared stills instantly, lifts his head and looks down at Jensen, frowning. “Do you want to stop?”        

Jensen tries to catch his breath. “No—can’t—but—just sit up a minute, okay?”

Jared sits up, moves as far away as the seat will allow, his back against the door of the car, and watches Jensen warily. Both of them are breathing hard. Jensen rubs the bite marks on his neck and tries to steady his heartbeat, to regain some control.        

Jared’s hair is all ruffled and messy, his lips swollen and slick from kissing, his expression cautious, the planes of his face and body patterned with shadow. He’s so gorgeous, forbidden and impossible to resist. Jensen reaches out and runs his hand down Jared’s side, can’t help smiling when he shivers and closes his eyes.

He waits until Jared opens them again before wrapping his hand around Jared’s cock, familiarizes himself with the way Jared feels, his eyes never straying from his face, reading his reactions, so turned on by the way his mouth drops open and his eyelids flutter. Jared’s body tenses and Jensen can see the effort it takes for him to try and relax, to keep his eyes open. His hands are clenched tightly at his sides.    

Jared twitches and arches slightly when Jensen rubs his thumb over the head. He swallows hard. “You always liked watching me like this,” he manages, teeth gritted.

“Yeah.”

“That’s because you’re a control freak.”

Jensen grins. “I just liked watching you lose it. Doesn’t make me a control freak. Also, that’s pretty hypocritical considering the way you were manhandling me a minute ago. When did you start liking it rough?”

“I don’t. It’s only because you drive me nuts. Would you just come here and stop teasing me.” Jared pulls him forward and kisses him hard. Jensen meets the intrusion of his tongue, his hand still wrapped around him, jerks him off harder and faster, the kiss turning messy and uncoordinated as they swallow each other’s panted breaths, until Jared groans and comes in Jensen’s hand, a long shudder racking his body.

It takes Jared a couple of minutes to recover and then he’s pushing Jensen down on the seat and ripping open his jeans, his fingers bruise-hard on Jensen’s hipbones. “Lift up,” he instructs.

“Yeah, okay. Let me just—” Jensen has to contort himself to pull at the laces of his left boot. Jared does the right boot, rips off his sock, but doesn’t give Jensen a chance to take off the other one before he’s got Jensen’s hips up and is pulling off his jeans and briefs.

Jensen’s on his back again, Jared’s mouth on him, so hot and intimate and familiar. He doesn’t last long because Jared knows exactly how to get him off, and he hasn’t forgotten a single trick, all those little things that drive Jensen crazy. He softly squeezes Jensen’s balls, rubs just behind them, his finger teasing at Jensen’s hole as he flutters his tongue and takes Jensen deep into his throat.

When they first started doing this, such a very long time ago, they’d spend hours exploring each other’s bodies, trying out new things on each other, fascinated by giving and receiving physical pleasure. Jared, especially, never had any inhibitions, wanted to try everything. “Do you like that? Does it feel good?” he’d ask. Jensen would normally grunt out some encouraging response, sometimes too drowned in arousal to say the words, sometimes too embarrassed to express them out loud. Jared always knew, though.

“Jared, I’m gonna—” He clutches Jared’s hair, tries to pull him off, but Jared won’t be moved. He sucks harder and pushes his finger all the way into Jensen’s body. It’s a sudden, slightly painful intrusion and it sends Jensen over the edge. He bucks, grips Jared’s hair tightly and comes, obliviously repeating Jared’s name.

When he opens his eyes, Jared is above him, his gaze intent. He leans down and kisses Jensen, his tongue slipping between his lips. The taste and smell of his own release is heavy and salty in Jensen’s mouth and nose—a primitive intimacy.

Jared sits up and smiles warily at him. The immediacy of their desire now satisfied, an atmosphere of self-conscious tension starts to fill the car.

That self-recriminatory voice starts up at the back of Jensen’s mind. He moves away from Jared and rakes a hand through his hair. “So much for resolutions. Jesus, is it always going to be fucking like this?”

A heavy silence hesitates between them before Jared answers in hard voice, “Yeah, Jensen, it will always be like this, unless we stay as far away as possible from each other.” 

“I tried that,” Jensen mutters, not hearing the testing note in Jared’s voice, the descent into his own issues too quick to notice  it.

“Why do you have to be such an asshole!”

Jensen jerks back at Jared’s harsh vehemence.

 “How do you think that makes me feel? When you turn around afterwards and treat me like I’m something… contagious that you can’t help catching but that you don’t consciously want?”

Jared’s skin is flushed, his eyes flashing and nostrils flaring.

Jensen doesn’t respond, taken aback by the suddenness of his fury.

“How do you think that makes me feel, Jensen?” 

Jensen wants to apologize—there’s something pretty horrible about still being naked immediately after sex and arguing like this—but he knows that it would be hypocritical because this is not a completely unfamiliar argument. This is what dominated those final months before he left, after his dad walked in on them, after his mom died, before Jared gave up on them and started seeing someone else.

“I’m sorry,” he says anyway.

“You know what? That’s not good enough, Jensen. You were always sorry.” Jared starts roughly putting his clothes back on. “You’re happy enough when your dick is in my mouth but afterwards I’m just a guilt-trip.”

So many unspoken words stuck in his throat, Jensen watches Jared wrench open the door, slam it behind him, rip open the front door of the car and grab his t-shirt.

Jared slams that door so hard everything shakes, then stalks off towards the bar pulling his t-shirt back on.       

 Jensen sits there for a moment, dazed, wondering what just happened, before banging his head on the back of the headrest of the driver’s seat and driving his fist into the side of it. “Why the hell do I do this to myself!”

As an additional punishment, he can’t find his keys next to the car. In that perverse way inanimate objects have sometimes, they just aren’t where the laws of physics and gravity determine they should be. By the time he finds them hidden on the inside of the front wheel, Jensen is ready to punch or kick something really hard. Only the thought of losing his insurance deposit stops him from damaging the car, which is obviously in collusion with the keys to make him more miserable than he rightfully deserves.

He drives home with his foot flat on the gas pedal, ignoring the glittering ceiling of stars and the long, dark stretch of the hills on the horizon, refusing to notice how beautiful it is, this place that he loves and hates equally.

The dogs bark at him when he gets to the house like he’s an intruder. The light in his dad’s bedroom comes on and he appears in the window for a brief moment before the curtains are flicked closed and the house is plunged back into darkness. He didn’t even leave the downstairs light on.

Jensen finds his way into the house and upstairs, strips off and pads to the bathroom naked. He brushes his teeth and wipes the dried flecks of semen off his stomach and crotch with a wet washcloth. He looks at himself in the bathroom mirror as he does it and thinks about Jared’s mouth on him, the softness of Jared’s hair between his fingers. He starts to harden in response and absently rubs the washcloth over his dick. A separate, more distanced and aware part of himself notices the glazing of his eyes in the mirrored reflection. He hisses in irritation and spits out the toothpaste in his mouth.       

It takes him a while to fall asleep, the darkness and silence outside so different to the lullaby of urban traffic and street-lighting he’s become used to over the past year. His final thought is a vague, nagging worry about whether his flaky room-mate paid the rent.

 


	2. Chapter 2

  


  


Jensen dreams about being lost in caves again. Him and Jared, twelve years old, abandoned in a network of cold and clammy caverns underground. He’s trying to listen for the sound of Jared’s voice but all he can hear are his parents’ voices calling him in counterpoint to each other. “Jensen, where are you? Where are you?”

He jerks awake, covered in sweat, the sheet sticking to his skin and the smell of his own body heavy in his nostrils. There’s a loud knocking at his bedroom door. “Time to get up, Jensen. It’s after nine. This is not a hotel. Nobody’s going to serve you breakfast in bed. I want you to help me find something.”

“Like you ever served breakfast in bed to anybody,” he says to his pillow, wrapping it over his head so he doesn’t have to listen to his dad complaining as he walks down the hallway.

So many of their conversations were held through walls and doors.   

“How the hell do you find anything in this?” he asks, two hours (and five cups of coffee) later as he trawls his way through a mountain of paperwork dumped on the kitchen table. Insurance policies, bank statements, bills and various other documents are all jumbled together.

“Your mother always did the paperwork. Everything just got into a mess after she passed.”

“You shouldn’t have let it get this bad. It’s not that hard to just file all the same stuff together.”

His dad takes a swallow of coffee and looks at Jensen over the top of his reading glasses. “You think I give a crap, Jensen? I’m going to sit around like some secretary shuffling paper when I know I’m dying? I’ve had better things to do with my time this past year.”

 It takes a minute for something in that to snag. “What do you mean the past year? You got diagnosed three months ago.”

His dad shrugs and pushes his chair away from the table. He gets up and refills his cup from the old metal coffee pot on the stove.

Jensen sits there and allows it to sink in. “You mean you found out a year ago that you had cancer and you didn’t tell me?”

His dad shrugs again and stares out the kitchen window at the dogs scuffling in the yard.

Anger flares up inside Jensen’s chest. No, not anger, absolute _fury_. He takes a deep breath so that it doesn’t pour out of him all at once. “I am your son. How do you not pick up a phone and tell me something like that?”

His dad turns around to face him, leans his hip against the kitchen counter and just stares at Jensen for a minute. “Well, that’s half of the problem right there. It’s not something you say to a person over the phone.”

Jensen grits his teeth. “I had a right to know.”

“You were away, living your own life. Doing whatever it is that you do. Acting. Pretending to be other people.” He manages to make it sound both ridiculous and seedy. “Why do you think you had a right to know?”

Jensen stands up and grips the edge of the table, surprised to feel himself shaking. “I am your son. I needed to know.”

 “Let me ask you a question then, son, when was the last time you called me dad?”

“What?” Jensen’s voice comes out high and surprised.

His dad looks at him coolly. “Jensen, you turned fifteen and I didn’t even know who you were anymore. You might as well have been a stranger living under my roof. I just don’t understand what you’ve done to yourself. And you had so much potential when you were a kid. Smart, good at sports, your mother’s looks. You could have had any girl you wanted, could have made your mother happy by giving her the grand-kids she always wanted. Look at this house and look at the yard out there,” he gestures towards the window. “Everything’s going to ruin. I can’t manage this place on my own.”

A crushing guilt settles on top of Jensen. It’s a familiar weight.

“You’ve never accepted help from anybody,” he starts, the desire to defend himself inherent, even if he doesn’t fully believe in what he’s saying. “You’re surrounded by friends and a community who would be here in an instant if you needed them. It’s not like you haven’t done it for them. But you’re so stubborn. Hell, you could have hired somebody. It’s not like you can’t afford it.”

“I wanted it to be you, goddamnit!”The sound of his dad’s coffee mug being slammed on the counter rings through the kitchen.

Jensen flinches.

“I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with your generation. Hank’s boy got arrested on drug charges in Thailand last year. The Fischer girl is still unmarried, has some Silicon Valley job, comes home once a year and looks down her nose at everybody like we’re hillbilly hicks. No respect. That’s the problem. And what happened to the sanctity of marriage and family? You broke your mother’s heart, Jensen.”

Jensen’s breath gets stuck in his chest as he sinks back into his chair and breathes hard through his nose, clenching his hands tightly together. “Don’t you put that on me,” he says staring down at the oak table, worn with years of use and history. “Your disappointment I can deal with, but not hers.”   

“You were best friends with that boy since you were knee high. What the hell were you thinking? It’s not right, Jensen. You were the stronger one; he used to follow you around like a puppy. And now he’s split up with that girl he was with. He’s messed up in the head. Both of you are. Are you— Have you been— Actually, don’t even answer that. I don’t want to know what you’ve been doing with those actor friends of yours.”

“You didn’t even ask the question, Dad.” He uses the word purposefully.

“I don’t want to know.”

“No, you don’t.”        

There’s no way his dad would understand the few empty encounters he’s had with anonymous men picked up in bars when loneliness forced him to seek out some physical contact, some sense of knowing he was still alive and connected with humanity. Over the past year he’s been dogged by homesickness, in the true sense of the word—sick, ill with a longing for something that felt like Home.

His dad is looking at him like there’s a bad smell in his nose. Jensen stares back at him in silent defiance. His dad sighs and unconsciously rubs his hip as if it was causing him pain. Jensen’s  defiance melts back into guilt and sorrow at the impossible gulf between him and this old man.     

“I’m sorry,” he says, knowing the apology means as little to his dad as it did to Jared last night. “I can’t help being who and what I am.”

His dad sighs again. “Everything is a choice, Jensen.”

Jensen doesn’t tell him that some things aren’t. He wouldn’t understand. They don’t even speak the same language.

His dad doesn’t look at him as he leaves the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him. He always liked the dramatic exit after having the final word. Jensen hears the pickup start a few minutes later and then it rattles away from the house.

It takes him another hour to find his dad’s will in the mountain of paperwork. He’s left five grand each  to the Armed Services YMCA and to a rare and endangered horse breeding program. Two policies worth twelve grand in total that will pay out on his death have been earmarked for Mrs. Betty Campbell, a friend of his mother’s who runs an art and craft shop in town. That gives Jensen pause. He wonders if his dad has been finding companionship with the Widow Campbell. He’s not quite sure how that makes him feel.

There are no other surprises. Everything else has been left to him.

It takes him another hour to create some semblance of order. Paperwork is something that he, too, despises. He uses the floor to make piles of documents, then shoves them into folders.

It’s almost two in the afternoon when he finally finishes. There’s no sign of his dad so Jensen decides it’s time for a liquid late lunch _._ Daytime drinking is exactly what he needs right now.

Three leathery old guys prop up the bar when Jensen walks in to _Layla’s_ half an hour later. Another guy in a cheap business suit sits in front of a laptop over in one corner. A posse of beer-gutted truckers cluster around  a table in the center of the room.

Jensen’s entrance is marked with indifferent glances. He settles on a bar stool and orders a beer and a shot of Jack, tries to quiet his rumbling stomach with peanuts as he watches a Cowboys vs. Rams rerun on the TV screen, engaging in occasional banter with the old roughnecks and the barman, a guy Jensen went to school with.

He drinks steadily during the game and is pretty far along the road towards dead-drunk by the time it finishes.

He goes to the toilet, unsteady on his feet, and when he comes back, two new arrivals are sitting at the bar. They size Jensen up in the way that macho Texan guys of a similar age and physique do in a place like this.  For no other reason than he’s drunk and in a bad mood, Jensen feels like knocking their heads together.

Jensen’s not an aggressive person when he’s sober. A lot of the time he has to work hard at not being quiet and reserved. Jared was always the out-going one who told people exactly what he thought, even when it got him into trouble.

Jensen should go home. There’s always a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cupboard. He could just sit on the porch and drink until he’s ready to go to bed and pass out. This day really needs to end already. He’s had enough of it.

But he doesn’t feel like being in the same house with his dad so he orders another beer instead. He can always sleep it off in the car in the parking lot. It’s not like that’s unheard of at Layla’s. Hell, legend goes that tough old Buck Williams, drunk and fast asleep on the ground, got run over in the parking lot—on two separate occasions—without major injuries either time.

Jensen half watches the start of a baseball game on the TV and listens to the conversation being held by the two guys next to him. It’s hard not to. They’re loud and obnoxious. He should just move away from them. Another _should_ that he ignores because of the alcohol short-circuiting the higher brain functioning of his cerebral cortex.

His blood starts a low simmer and hits boiling point when one of the guys recounts a story about how he put a guy in the hospital because this “pussy faggot” was spending too much time with his girlfriend and started turning her against him. The other guy laughs and says something about him being better off without the “fag hag” anyway.   

Jensen doesn’t remember what it is that he turns and says to them, but it results in some trading of verbal insults along the lines of a general undermining of each other’s masculinity, quickly escalates into somebody throwing a punch and ends with Jensen being head-butted in the face, falling backwards and hitting his head on the edge of the bar. And then everything just goes black.

Consciousness arrives hand-in-hand with physical pain, enough to make him wish for the dark oblivion of being knocked-out again.

He groans as he opens his eyes.

It takes him a few minutes to figure out where he is. There are water-stains on the ceiling and he’s lying on a threadbare couch that smells like old beer. A filing cabinet is against the wall in front of him next to a girly calendar. He’s in the back office at _Layla’s_.     

“Ryan knows first aid and thinks you’ll probably be okay, but I think we should take you to the emergency room to have you checked out anyway.”

It’s Jared, of course.

Jensen turns to see him sitting in a chair next to him, watching him with a closed expression, his forehead furrowed into a deep frown.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ryan called me. He didn’t call the cops, but you’re going to have to pay for the damage.”

Jensen sits up, grimacing at the pain that thunders through his head. He lifts a hand and gingerly rubs the swollen lump at the back of his skull, hissing at the painful contact.

“Here.” Jared hands him a glass of water.

Jensen takes it and downs half of it, places the glass on the floor next to him when he’s done.

He sits up and then stands carefully. The room sways slightly, then rights itself. He’s got a headache and a painful cheekbone. His knuckles are swollen and grazed and his stomach feels a bit queasy, but otherwise he feels okay.

Jared stands up. “C’mon, I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

“I’m not going to the emergency room, Jared. I’m fine.” 

Jared looks like he might be thinking about taking a swing at Jensen himself. “How did I know you were going to say that? You are so bull-headed.”

“It’s why you love me, right?” Jensen aims for casual cockiness with a wink, groaning inwardly at how much the simple movement hurts.

Jared snorts and mutters something under his breath.

Jensen doesn’t need to hear it. He knows there’s probably something inherently unlovable about him. He goes over to the sink in the corner of the room and looks at his reflection in the cracked mirror above it. His cheek is inflamed and swollen. The white of his eye is purpled with burst capillaries. He’s going to have a black eye by tomorrow. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have an acting contract to go back to. Producers don’t take kindly to the merchandise getting damaged.

Jared’s face appears above his left shoulder. “You look like hell.”

 “Thanks. You, on the other hand, look like—”

He doesn’t quite know where he was going with that so just leaves it there. Jared locks eyes with him in the mirror. Jensen jerks when he feels Jared’s arm snaking around his waist but Jared just pulls him back firmly against the heat of his body, cranes forward and presses a careful kiss against Jensen’s jaw.

He steps back before Jensen can get over his surprise and says, “Rinse your face. I’ll get you some ice.”

 Jensen does as he’s told. Jared comes back and hands him a bar towel—thankfully clean—holding a mound of crushed ice. Jensen takes it, wraps it up and gently presses it against his bruised cheek.

“If you won’t let me take you to the emergency room then you’re coming home with me so I can keep an eye on you tonight.”

Jensen starts to protest. He doesn’t want to face his dad like this but going home with Jared sounds like an infinitely worse idea. Before he can get the words out, though, Jared holds up a hand and stops him.

“You’re not in a state to say no, and if you resist, I will literally drag you with me by force, Jensen. I’m not even kidding.”   

“Fucking Neanderthal,” Jensen mutters grumpily.

“Says the man who just got into a bar brawl in the middle of the afternoon.”

Jensen snorts, unable to argue with that. Jared gives him a crooked little smile. “Face it, Jen, you’re a Texas redneck, just like the rest of us. You can’t deny your heritage. What would your fancy West Coast friends say if they saw you now?”

“Fuck you. Are you seriously going to taunt an injured man?”

“Aaw, you want me to carry you out to the car? I could do that. You look like you lost some weight the past year.”

Jensen gives him the most threatening look he can manage with his damaged face. “I will make you pay for that.”

Jared pauses, then says in a low, quiet voice, “Promises, promises, Jensen,” before turning on his heel and walking out the room.

“Fuck,” Jensen mumbles, feeling like a doomed man as he obediently follows him.

 Ryan takes his time berating Jensen and makes him pay for a couple of broken barstools and some smashed glasses. Jensen’s aware of Jared behind him, probably smirking the whole time.

They drive back to Jared’s family’s place without speaking. The sun’s already mostly set, just a long hinged crack of gold glimmering along the horizon separating sky from land.

“Nobody’s here but me. They’ve gone away for the weekend,” Jared says as they pull up to the house. Jensen’s grateful for that. Much as he likes Jared’s family, he really doesn’t want to see them right now.

The house is so familiar to him. It smells of dogs and family and the sweet lingering scent of something baked. Everything’s big, open-plan, airy, and filled with colorful handmade crafts and custom mesquite furniture.

They go into the kitchen and Jared says, “Sit down,” as he starts rummaging around in the big double-door fridge.

“Yes, boss,” Jensen mutters and sinks into a chair at the long wooden table in the center of the kitchen.

Jared takes a plate of something out of the fridge and puts it in the warmer drawer of the traditional wood cookstove. He pours Jensen a glass of milk and places it in front of him. “Drink that and stay there,” he instructs.

“Want me to roll over and play dead?” Jensen aims at his back as he walks out.

“I think you’re probably beyond any proper training already. Also, you couldn’t shut up for long enough to play dead,” Jared’s voice returns from the room next door.

He comes back a few minutes later with a first aid kit and places it on the kitchen table in front of Jensen.

“There better be some painkillers in there. I’ve got a fucking monster headache.”

“I don’t think you should take anything. You might have a concussion.” Jared opens the kit and gets out some disinfectant and gauze pads.

“I’m not concussed, Jared. Been there before, remember? I think I’d recognize it.”

Jared pauses with the bottle of disinfectant in his hand and looks down at him. “Yeah, I remember.”

They were sixteen when it happened. Out in the hills racing each other on their bikes when Jensen’s brakes failed coming down a really steep rise. He hit a rock, went over the handlebars and then went bouncing down the side of the rocky ravine next to the dirt track, headfirst into a tree. He ended up in hospital with a broken arm and collarbone and a pretty severe concussion.

“That was the first time.” Jared opens up the bottle of disinfectant and dribbles some of it on the pad. He lifts Jensen’s chin and turns his face sideways so he can dab his grazed cheekbone.

Jensen hisses at the sting. “First time for what?”

“First time I realized I didn’t just love you but that I was in love with you.”

Jensen silently watches Jared’s averted profile as he puts the bottle of disinfectant back into the first aid kit. He faces Jensen again, so much concentrated intensity in his expression. “I remember looking at you lying there with your shoulder fucking twisted like that, your face so white and all that bright red blood on your forehead. I thought you were dead. And then I thought, he can’t be dead because I’m in love with him.”

They look at each other silently, a paused moment weighted with their history and all the perfect things they’ve shared together and all the shit things they’ve done to each other.

“So when did it go away?” Jensen asks quietly.

“It never went away, Jensen, you did.”

“I mean before I left.”

“What makes you think the way I felt about you changed? It didn’t. I just couldn’t deal with the secrecy anymore and your constant angst after your dad walked in on us that time. I wanted you so much and I just felt like I couldn’t have you completely. And it was somehow worse for me only half having you.”

Jared sits down in the chair opposite Jensen and starts tracing his finger over the red cross on the first aid kit. He keeps his eyes down as he continues, “The way you used to withdraw from me after we’d just had sex. I could literally see you putting up all these barriers, distancing yourself and then beating yourself up over it. I couldn’t just be your dirty, guilty secret. It was eating me up."

He looks up at Jensen. “It was a mistake, though, being with her. If I’m honest, I used her to get your attention, to make you realize that I was what you wanted. I’m so ashamed that I did that to her. And then you just left anyway. Just like you always said you were going to.”

Before Jensen can respond, Jared gets up and goes over to the stove, removes the plate from the oven with a dishtowel and puts it in front of him. He gets a fork and brings it back, sits down again and says, “Eat your supper and drink your milk or there will be no dessert,” as if he hadn’t just said all that.

Jensen gives him a sad smile that Jared returns. It makes him look twelve years old. The scent of the chili drifts up and Jensen breathes it in. He picks up the fork and starts to eat, needing just a few minutes to process his thoughts. Jared gets up again and gets a beer from the fridge, sits down and watches him.

Jensen manages half the food, pushes the plate away from him, wipes his mouth with the back of his mouth and downs the glass of milk.

“It wasn’t really like that for me,” he says. “I mean, I don’t remember a single moment like that.”

Jared looks back at him, waiting silently for him to continue.

“You were my best friend, and when we started fucking around, it just felt like a natural evolution, like it was always going to happen. It felt so right, so normal at first. But—”

Jared raises his eyebrows.

“But then it changed, and I can’t remember when that happened either. It just did. You were never my dirty, guilty secret. It wasn’t like that. I just thought as long as nobody found out about it then I could get to keep it for longer. I knew that it couldn’t go on indefinitely. I knew at some point you’d meet a girl you wanted to be with.”

Jared clenches his beer bottle so hard his knuckles whiten. His jaw tightens but he doesn’t say anything.

 “Jesus, there were enough of them lining up for you,” Jensen continues. “And you were always such a flirt. It used to drive me insane. After we had that fight in the tenth grade and you ignored me for two weeks afterwards, I realized I didn’t have any claim on you. I wanted to kill you, Jared. I’m not kidding. I had this moment—”

Jensen’s hands are shaking and he clenches them to hide it. Jared notices anyway.

Jensen laughs humorlessly. “Yeah, I guess you didn’t realize at the time how close I came to really hurting you. It scared me. So I guess I was just trying to protect myself by keeping at least some distance between us while I waited for the inevitable to happen. And then it did.”

Jared scrapes his chair around the side of the table and forcibly pulls Jensen around to face him, gripping his arms tightly. “Do you ever actually listen to anything I say to you, you stubborn fucker? Just listen to me!”

His breath is hot and beery in Jensen’s face. Jensen tries to pull back but Jared just holds on. “It wasn’t some phase that I was going to grow out of. I am never going to meet a girl that I want to be with. Not ever. You pushed me away and I was stupid enough to let you do it. Do you know how fucking self-fulfilling waiting for the inevitable is?”

Jared draws in a sharp breath and blows it out, his eyes wild. “Ask me to come with you.”

“What?”

“I said, ask me to come with you, Jensen. All the years you spoke about getting out of here, you never once directly asked me to come with you.”

“But I’m leaving tomorrow,” Jensen says inanely.

Jared rolls his eyes, takes another deep breath and speaks really slowly, enunciating each word. “Ask me to come with you.”

“I can’t. It’s not easy out there. And this is where you belong.”

“I don’t _belong_ anywhere, Jensen. This is just a place. It’ll still be here if I decide to come back. Is it that difficult to just ask?”

“Yeah, it is that difficult.” 

“Ask me,” Jared says quietly.

It’s like standing at the edge of a cliff. Surely it can’t be that simple, just a matter of asking for something and then receiving it. It cannot be that easy. Or that difficult. Because putting it into words, making yourself vulnerable like that, throwing yourself off the edge _is_ impossibly difficult. In his mind, Jensen can feel himself backing away from it and he knows that Jared knows he’s doing it because he can see the hesitation and fear written on Jared’s face.

Jensen can’t do this again. He can’t walk away again from this person he has always loved.

“Do you want to come with me, Jared?”

A grin splits Jared’s face and his whole face lights up. “Yes, Jensen, I want to go wherever the fuck you want to go. We can go to the goddamn North Pole if you like.”

Jensen feels light-headed and starts to suspect that maybe he is suffering from a severe head injury. “Okay,” he says.

Some of the light and happiness fades from Jared’s expression. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” And he really is. Wanting Jared is one of the few things he’s ever been sure about. “I’m sure,” he says again and leans forward to kiss Jared softly. Jared reaches up and cups his cheek. Jensen hisses in pain.

Jared pulls back, bites his lip, his expression apologetic. “Shit, I’m sorry. You okay?”

Jensen laughs. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just be gentle with me, you Neanderthal. No rough stuff.”

“What the hell made you take on two guys like that?” Jared asks, grinning.

“What, besides the fact that they were homophobic knuckleheads? I guess it was the realization that nothing I ever do will be good enough for my dad.”

Jared’s grin dies away. “He’s a hard man, Jensen. He’ll never be okay with it.”

“I know.”

“But you don’t need his permission to be happy.”

Jensen takes a minute to consider that. He recognizes the truth in it and knows he has spent years trying to compensate for being gay by being really miserable and not allowing himself to have what he wants. “Yeah, I know. You’re right. Are you… are you really serious about coming with me?”

Jared leans forward, clasps his hands and looks him straight in the eye. “Never been more serious about anything in my life.”

Jensen starts to feel embarrassed. “Jesus, are you going to go down on one knee?”

Jared grins. “ Say what now? You want me to go down on you? Here, in the kitchen? On my knees where my family has breakfast every morning. You’re pretty perverted, Jensen.”

Jensen laughs. “It’s not like you haven’t done it before, bitch.”

Jared gives him a look of mock indignation before laughingly saying, “Do you remember that weekend?”

“How could I forget. It was like a fucking sex marathon. I’m pretty sure we did it in every single room in this house.”

Jared’s family had gone away for the weekend to visit some relatives and had left the two of them in the house on their own. Just the weekend before Jared and Jensen had gone camping on the Saturday and Jensen had fucked Jared for the first time. Jensen can remember the ecstatic, frightening intensity of being inside Jared like it was only yesterday. Ever since then he has a weird sort of Pavlovian response to the idea of camping or even the sight of a tent. It’s impossible for him to go into a camping store without getting a hard-on. It’s like some weird fetish.

“I’m pretty sure we broke records.”

Jensen smiles at the memory, “Yeah.”

Jared stands up. “Do you want to come to bed with me, Jensen?”

Jensen matches Jared’s serious expression and nods his head. He stands up and Jared takes his hand. It’s cheesy and sweet, so typical of Jared, and makes Jensen’s heart clench.

They go upstairs to Jared’s room, take off their clothes and lie down next to each other. The light from the lamp next to the bed bathes them in warm light. They take their time. It’s slow and gentle, has to be because Jensen’s hurting in so many places.

Jared seems desperate to touch Jensen everywhere. He tenderly explores Jensen’s body with his hands and mouth until Jensen’s skin feels like it’s singing, sensitized to every little touch and flutter of breath. He’s lost in a haze of sensation when Jared turns him on his side and works him open with wet fingers, nuzzling into his neck as he does it. He slides in and Jensen thinks he might come just like that, but Jared won’t let him, he stills, waiting until Jensen has calmed down and then he starts moving again, just smooth, little thrusts of his hips, buried so deep inside, his arm wrapped around Jensen and their bodies flush against each other, chest to back and hips to ass, their legs and feet entwined.

Jensen’s orgasm draws out long and slow. His entire body flushes with heat, like his skin’s sunburned. Jared’s making these broken, breathy little sounds near his ear and turns Jensen’s face when he starts to come so that he can kiss him as his body jerks and then ripples with the tremors of his release.

Afterwards, just before they fall asleep together, Jensen tells Jared that he loves him and Jared says it back to him, and it feels natural and true and un-embarrassing.

They grin at each other when they wake simultaneously the next morning, and that does feel dorky and embarrassing so Jensen insults Jared’s morning breath and Jared pulls the covers over Jensen’s head before letting off such a terrible fart that Jensen almost throws up.

They’re playful in the shower, teasing and pushing each other, until they’re standing face-to-face jerking each other off with soapy hands and Jensen has this dazed moment of thinking that the line about losing yourself in another person’s eyes or eyes being windows or something is all completely true.

Jared’s big, noisy family turn up just as Jensen’s about to leave and everybody exclaims over his black eye. His mother looks knowingly at the two of them, grins and says, “There you are, Jensen. Just the other night I had this strange dream about you finding your way back to us though a tunnel underground.” His dad looks gruffly pleased, but awkward, so he leaves the room. One of Jared’s little sisters puts her finger in her mouth and pretends to be throwing up so Jared tickles her until she almost cries from laughing.

Jensen has a moment of mild resentment. Jared’s easy disposition comes from his family’s completely laid-back attitude to everything. He remembers an overheard conversation from when he was a kid at some social event when a pursed-lipped mother had whispered something about Jared’s parents being hippy communists when they were young.  

“They’re going to miss you,” Jensen says to Jared in the car on the way over to _Layla’s_ to pick up the rental car. He can’t help the hopeful note, like he’s just checking on things for the hundredth time.

“Nah, they’ll be happy to finally get rid of me,” Jared replies and grins casually at him.

They arrange for Jensen to go back to Jared’s house for dinner and then Jared pushes him up against the rental car and kisses Jensen until he’s breathless. He pulls back, gives Jensen a quick kiss on the mouth and another on the end of his nose. “I’ll see you tonight.” He gives Jensen this wide grin and strolls back to his truck.  

Lost in thought, Jensen stands there next to the rental for a minute after Jared has driven away.

Yesterday he believed certain things to be true but today those things are no longer his reality. The future stretches wide open in front of him and he has a moment of such intense happiness he thinks his heart might burst.

He quickly gets in the car when he realizes he’s just standing there grinning to himself like a crazy person.

There’s a song on the radio about moving on which encapsulates everything important about anything and he decides it’s the best song he’s ever heard.

He gets back to the house, notices the unknown car in the driveway but he’s still so lost in his head and all the possibilities of tomorrow that he’s not really expecting to find anyone in the kitchen as he walks through the door.

It’s a shock when he sees a slender female figure, silver-gray hair pulled up into bun standing with her back to him over at the sink. He does a double-take. When the woman turns around, he realizes he’s not having visions of seeing his mother’s ghost.

“Hello, Jensen.” Betty Campbell smiles brightly at him. Her silver and seashell earrings project light from the window behind her.

“Hi,” he says, worrying that it sounds prickly without him meaning it to.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

It feels a bit weird being offered coffee in his family home by a woman who is not his mom but Jensen nods awkwardly. “Uh, sure.” He sits down at the table and watches her moving easily around the kitchen. She is clearly comfortable in this room.

He accepts the cup from her and she sits down opposite him. “I bet you’re surprised to see me here. I don’t imagine your father has spoken about me, am I right?”

“I’m not completely surprised to see you, no, but you’re right about him not talking about you. I got the idea that you were…uh…friends from someplace else. ”

“I see. And what do you think about that, Jensen?” Her expression is open, warm and honest.

“I think you’re a brave woman, Mrs. Campbell,” he responds dryly.

“You mean stupid and possibly nuts, right?” She puts up a hand when he starts to protest. “That’s okay, Jensen. I’ve been called many things in my life. I’m also a terrible busybody and believe in speaking my mind. So I’m just going to say this whether you like it or not. If your daddy leaves this world and you’re still estranged from him, you will regret that for the rest of your life.”

Jensen isn’t annoyed at her meddling. He can see that she means well. “I hear what you’re saying but it’s a two-way street.”

“No, honey, it isn’t. Not with your dad. Everything only runs in one direction with that man. He was always like that, but he’s gotten worse with the years. You have to be the better man. And you have enough of your mother in you to be the better man.” She laughs at the way that comes out. “I know she struggled some with finding out about you batting for the other team.”

Jensen snorts at her choice of expression.

She taps the side of her coffee cup, runs her finger around the rim. “Sorry, Jensen, I mean you no disrespect. What I’m trying to say is that it was a terrible tragedy she was taken so suddenly from us before she was able to come around to the fact you were never going to marry a nice girl and raise some kids. Because she would have come around to it. She just worried about you, that’s all, but she loved you and she would have wanted you to be happy. We used to talk a lot so I know that’s true.”            

“Thank you,” Jensen says, his voice gruff, the thread between his mom and this friend of hers connecting him to the source.

“Are you happy, Jensen?”

Jensen considers the question. “I wasn’t happy yesterday but today I’m feeling hopeful. I think I’m going to be. And that’s why I’m not going to allow his disapproval to stop that from happening.”

“Good for you!” she exclaims, patting the table happily before leaning back in her seat. “I think for some kids they’ve got to get to that point before they can move on with their adult lives. Family life can be full of trial and tribulation, Jensen, I know that. Sometimes it feels like they’re only around to test us. But they’re still family. I’m not asking for a miracle here. I just don’t want you to walk out that door with no intention of ever coming back. Don’t leave here with bitterness between you and your dad. Just phone him occasionally and come back and see him. That’s all. He really very ill, Jensen. And I truly believe the two of you can negotiate your way around this. I know you probably think it’s all or nothing. If he can’t accept that you’re gay, then there’s no place in your life for him. You’re young and that’s how young people think. But life is full of compromise, honey.”

“How come it’s only me doing the compromising, though?

“Did I not just convince you with the whole being-the-better-man argument?”

Jensen smiles. “I can see you’re very experienced in the art of argument. Working on my ego is a pretty smart move. You were doing a good job there.”

She laughs and stands up. “You were always so adorable. Your mother would have been proud of you. I think your daddy is mostly proud of you too. He’s just got some very entrenched ideas in his head. You need to forgive him for that.”

She picks up a handbag from the table and hangs it over her shoulder. “Just think about it, okay? Nothing’s impossible.”

Jensen returns her smile as she leaves, thinking his dad is luckier than he deserves to be.

Later that night, as he sits at the dinner table with Jared’s family, and Jared starts aiming these dirty, leering, eyebrow-waggling expressions at him when nobody’s looking to make him laugh, that’s what Jensen thinks about—that maybe nothing is totally impossible.

Right now, catching Jared’s bright gaze, he feels like anything’s possible.

THE END

  


  


            


End file.
